Three Cowboys 'Don'ts' For NFL Draft Weekend
The Dallas Cowboys have 10 picks and plenty of options entering the 2021 NFL Draft next week. Here are three ‘Don’ts’ I think the Cowboys should avoid doing next weekend.
‘Don’t’ draft Kyle Pitts. He’s the offensive player du jour when it comes to what the Cowboys COULD do at No. 10. He’s that ‘bright, shiny, thing’ that Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones always seems to be attracted to on draft night. He is, admittedly, an athletic freak and dominated his combine and pro day workouts.
My question is this — can he play defensive line? Or cornerback? Because if he can, I’m all for it.
But grabbing yet ANOTHER offensive player when the defense is in need of help on all three levels just doesn’t make much sense to me.
Plus, there’s this. The Cowboys had a solid tight end last year in Dalton Schultz, who caught 63 passes for 615 yards and four touchdowns. And Schultz did that with four different quarterbacks throwing the football.
The season before, in 2019, Blake Jarwin had 36 caches for 307 yards and three touchdowns, and he probably would have had much better numbers if Jason Witten hadn’t come out of retirement and caught 63 passes. Jarwin caught just one pass last season due to injury, opening up an opportunity for Schultz.
What I’m getting at is this — the Cowboys have talent at the position, talent that in combination could catch upwards of 80 passes this season. Pitts is a redundancy that, to me, the Cowboys don’t need when compared to their needs on the other side of the ball.
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‘Don’t’ pick 10 players. As I wrote in my ‘Do’s’ piece on Tuesday, the Cowboys should be all over exploring trade opportunities on all three days of the draft. They should not stand pat, and they should not ignore opportunities to move up, even if it costs them picks late in the draft.
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The Cowboys have multiple picks in three rounds — the third, the fourth and the sixth. If I were in their shoes, I would do everything possible to deal those sixth- and seventh-round pick to get an additional fifth-rounder (it’s easier now that you can trade compensatory picks). Doing something like that would reduce the Cowboys’ draft haul from 10 to eight players. But it would also put them in position to grab eight players among the Top 180 prospects, which would be better long-term, in my opinion. I would be even more satisfied to see the Cowboys turn these 10 picks into six or seven selections that end up in the Top 150.
Why? It’s unlikely these sixth- and seventh-round selections will make the team. They’re more likely to end up on the Cowboys’ practice squad. Developmentally, that’s fine. But, the Cowboys need players that can offer a more tangible contribution now and in the next couple of years, and getting players higher in the draft improves the prospects of making that happen.
But standing pat and taking all 10 selections as they’re scheduled, to me, feels like it might be a waste of those three days.
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‘Don’t’ forget to draft a linebacker. I’m interested to see what defensive coordinator Dan Quinn does with a 211-pound linebacker in Keanu Neal. That’s where they have Neal slotted at the moment. They return Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch. We’re still not totally sure what Sean Lee intends to do.
But I know these things: Lee and Vander Esch are both injury risks. Smith struggled at times in last year’s defense, and here’s hoping that Quinn can take full advantage of what Smith can do. The Cowboys’ best depth at the position, Joe Thomas, is now in Houston. The rest of the roster at the position is just names and faces at this point.
The Cowboys need to bring in a young linebacker to improve depth and have backup plans in case Vander Esch gets hurt again.
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You can follow Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
